Our goal is to build an electronic community composed of high school andcollege teachers and students, research geometers, researchers ingeometry education, developers of software and other educationalmaterials, appliers of geometry, and everyone else interested in thesubject. Various aspects of the world of geometry make this a realpossibility and a goal with important educational consequences.

We're now feeding quite a few sites (listed at the end) and some of themare feeding other sites .... We welcome the batch of new readers whohave arrived, but we note with concern that some of our sites may expirearticles as rapidly as every three days, which can give a fledglingbulletin board a rather denuded appearance. Please drop us a note if youread us on a feed and find almost nothing there; at the moment we're notsure how serious the problem is.

Do post your questions, comments, suggestions! We've heard frompersonal email that there are a lot of folks reading but not writing, andwhile we have not the slightest doubt that we'll ultimately fly, we needyour immediate help in getting off the ground.

Although we may later become a regular Usenet newsgroup, while we getthe kinks out and the structure coalesces, we will continue to exist as aseparate newsgroup hierarchy on our own news server, with feeds to anumber of institutions and educational networks. We can also appear as amailing list to those who have only email capabilities or prefer thisform of interaction.

We realize the importance of having school teachers participating on theForum from the outset, and our sponsor, the National Science Foundation,has given us some funds to work with local Philadelphia schools. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is not among the leading states in bringingtelecommunications technology to the schools, and we have been forced torely on the kindness of local institutions of higher learning for teacheraccounts. This has been more of a struggle than we anticipated, althoughwe are making progress. We have yet to find a magic formula whichunlocks the hearts of directors of computer centers or those to whom theyreport. Suggestions would be most welcome, since this problem is by nomeans unique to Philadelphia.

For the time being we have modest funds which we could use to help someworthy teachers get on the Internet, and we'd like suggestions ofparticularly meritorious individual teachers of geometry.

We already have hints of the possible force of interactions possiblewhen teachers, mathematics educators, and mathematicians talk together. However, we lack the critical mass to have many examples of teacherssupporting teachers, an activity we expect to be important. And otherenticing possibilities go dangling: --a science museum curator posed a question on mazes, and it took along time for anyone to respond; --a community college teacher reports that her institution is now thinking of adding geometry to their curriculum and wishes suggestions; no response to date.

We hope to soon begin working with interested teachers to developclassroom geometry projects which involve the Internet in general and theGeometry Forum in particular. We're looking for teachers with ideas, andwe have some modest funds available. Interested?

As a necessary aid to community building, we also have a softwaredevelopment component to our project. Our goal is to constructnewsreading software which is especially simple and easy to use and, tomeet the special needs of our particular clientele, has the capacity tosend and interpret symbols and diagrams. Within a month we hope to postour plans on the Forum for public input.

Gene Klotz

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Accessing The Geometry Forum:

It is especially convenient if your site is willing to carry our feed aspart of its regular news, since you can then read us as you would anormal Usenet newsgroup. Drop a line to our network guru,phil@forum.swarthmore.edu.

Otherwise we're accessible by pointing your newsreader toforum.swarthmore.edu instead of your local news server. Further detailsabout access are available by writing annie@forum.swarthmore.edu, or bycalling 1-800-756-7823.

An email alternative which we're currently debugging: If you're not setup for newsgroups or prefer mailing lists, we'll send you all newpostings of the Forum (sub)groups you're interested in as email and youcan respond in kind. To try out this possibility, mailmajordomo@forum.swarthmore.edu with a message body of 'help'. Nosubject line.

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We're currently feeding the following sites. Further suggestionswelcome.